The relationship between young
David and King Shaul was, to say the least, very complicated. David had been
secretly anointed by Shmuel, and Shaul was still the reigning monarch. As
David’s military career grows in success after success, Shaul begins to suspect
that the young man from Beit Lechem may be the man prophesied to take away his
throne. The conflict that ensued was inevitable.

What is difficult to understand
is the nature of the setup. Why did God give Shmuel the order to anoint David
while Shaul still reigned? Furthermore, how is that a meaningful thing to do?
What does it mean to have two anointed kings of Israel? It seems absurd, and
leads to an absurd dynamic. Let’s hold this question in abeyance till the end of
the paper.

---

Another classic problem in this
part of the book of Shmuel is the double introduction of David to Shaul. David
is brought before Shaul as a minstrel, and then again as a warrior. The odd
thing is, on both occasions David needs to be introduced to Shaul. Why doesn’t
Shaul know who David is already. Let us look at both of these stories.

Soon after his being anointed,
David finds himself being summoned before the king. Although we as readers know
the purpose of this summons, David does not. Imagine his fear of Shaul’s wrath,
worrying that his secret future coup has been discovered. Here is the story as
it appears in Shmuel, chapter 16:

13 Then
Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him (David ) in the midst of
his brethren; and the spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from
that day forward. So Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah.

16 Let
our lord now command thy servants, that are before thee, to seek out a
man who is a skilful player on the harp; and it shall be, when the evil
spirit from God cometh upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and
thou shalt be well.' {P}

18 Then
answered one of the young men, and said: 'Behold, I have seen a son of
Jesse the Beth-lehemite, that is skilful in playing, and a mighty man of
valour, and a man of war, and prudent in affairs, and a comely person,
and the LORD is with him.'

23 And it
came to pass, when the [evil] spirit from God was upon Saul, that David
took the harp, and played with his hand; so Saul found relief, and it
was well with him, and the evil spirit departed from him. {P}

Clearly in this episode David is
not a nameless servant in Shaul’s service. His musical skills have brought such
comfort to his King, that Shaul sends a personal request for his continued
presence. Yet both before and after David’s battle with Goliath, Shaul asks his
general Avner to identify this brave young fighter and his family. This is
related in chapter 17.

55 And
when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine, he said unto Abner,
the captain of the host: 'Abner, whose son is this youth?' And Abner
said: 'As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell.'

What happened here? Why did Shaul
seemingly forget who David was and need to dispatch his general to identify him?
Biblical critics have claimed that this double introduction of David to Shaul is
a vestige of two competing legends of the “David meets Shaul” story. The editor
of the book of Shmuel simply included both stories as they came down in
tradition. One focuses on David as a musician with a beautiful soul that reaches
out to others, and the other presents him as the warrior of God who steps on the
battlefield with complete faith. These competing traditions, they say, record
two different explanations of which unique quality of David first brought him to
the attention of Shaul.

I suppose that this is possible,
but it suffers from an obvious problem. Why would such a skilled and artistic
editor have been so sloppy? The sages of Talmud say that the book of Shmuel was
assembled from different documents, written by Shmuel, Gad and Natan the
prophets. The editor(s) assembled these documents into a masterful work of
biblical literature. Sefer Shmuel is my favorite book in Tanach, having the best
qualities of a book of the bible and a modern novel combined. Would these
masters of literary craft have accidentally or intentionally left such a glaring
plot flaw in the story? It seems unlikely.

That having been said, the basic
question is a good one. Why does Shaul ask for David’s identity when he
obviously knew him? I believe that the solution to the mystery lies in these
seemingly innocuous verses from chapter 14:

49 Now
the sons of Saul were Jonathan, and Ishvi, and Malchi-shua; and the
names of his two daughters were these: the name of the first-born Merab,
and the name of the younger Michal;

It seems to me that the main
character in both the pre and post Goliath story (from chapter 17) is not Shaul
or David, but rather Avner ben Ner. Notice that it is made clear that Avner is
asked to identify David before the battle with Goliath, and is standing with
David afterwards. Why is Avner’s presence focused on at all? The story could
have been easily told without mentioning him.

As is indicated in chapter 14,
verse 52, security problems plagued Shaul’s reign. He began to assemble the
first standing army in the history of our people. Clearly, Shaul could not have
done this without the help of his staff. They identified and conscripted any man
who seemed to have the makings of a good soldier. Included in this military
draft, were the three oldest sons of Yishai, David’s big brothers. It is a
recurring element in these early stories of David, that hardly anyone saw his
potential as a leader or warrior.

Who would have been in charge of
this rounding up of soldiers of Israel? Who collected all of the men who stood
trembling at the taunts of Goliath? Who ran the program of military conscription
that overlooked David both in Yishai’s household and in the household of the
king himself?! None other than Avner ben Ner, cousin of the King and captain of
his hosts.

When David steps up to face
Goliath, Shaul ribs his cousin, asking him if he knows who this brave boy is.
Avner has no idea. When David is brought back by Avner, Shaul asks the youth to
announce to his cousin which household he comes from. There is an implied
criticism of Avner, as if to say, “didn’t you go to the house of Yishai and come
back with three men? Didn’t they shirk in terror at the taunts of the
Philistine? How did you miss this youngster?”

This is, of course, a gentle
rebuke. By referring to David as a youth and stripling, Shaul is being ironic,
(David was “more of a man” than any of the assembled) but he is also softening
the criticism of his cousin’s lapse. David did not, after all, look or act like
the kind of warrior who could challenge Goliath. This is the point of the story,
and the reason for its inclusion. Avner is yet another character who mistakes
outward appearance for inner potential, and thereby misses David completely. He
is not the first character in these chapters to do so. David’d father and
brothers, Shmuel, and Shaul all seem to have made the same mistake. (see the
rest of chapters 16 and 17 for the details)

In fact, David being the minstrel
of Shaul would probably have made him less noticeable to Avner, not more. It
seems unlikely that Avner searched the ranks of poets and musicians when
assembling the hosts of Israel. It may very well have been David’s sensitive
soul and musical talents that kept him under Avner’s radar. This is the point
of the story, and it unites both “introduction” episodes into one. David’s
combination of qualities was so rare and unique, that everyone had trouble
figuring out what he was all about, including those closest to him. Only God and
an anonymous young man in Shaul’s court recognized the astonishing range of
talents possessed by young David.

Basically Shaul is setting Avner
up. He wants to see the look on his general’s face when he finds out that he has
passed by the “stripling” and simply never noticed him.

---

Now back to our original problem.
Why did God want David anointed while Shaul still reigned? What does it even
mean to have two men anointed king at the same time?

Our third Rosh Kollel, HaRav
Moshe Lichtenstein, wrote a series of articles on Jewish political theory. They
appear online at Yeshivat Har Etzion’s Virtual Bet Midrash. (it is definitely
recommended reading and can be found at
http://www.vbm-torah.org/archive.htm#kings )

In the series, Rav Lichtenstein
writes:

“there is a dual element
involved in the mitzvah [of appointing a king]:

a) appointment of a sovereign
who has the authority of government as the state's executive arm; and

b) the personal election of a
monarch as representative of Divine action and presence upon earth.

In this [latter] capacity, he
is a sacral figure, sharing certain common characteristics with a kohen (gadol).
This latter role is unique to the Davidic lineage and does not apply to other
monarchs.”

In other words, there are two
aspects to being a king of Israel. A king is both the official leader of the
people, and also God’s representative to the people. A chief executive who is
not a descendant of David is the former but not the latter. (see the article
online for proof)

Later in his paper, Rav
Lichtenstein specifically mentions that the status of Shaul is unclear to him. I
assume that by this he means that he is not sure if Hashem has bestowed upon
Shaul the status of the sacral figure described above. Perhaps he simply had the
status of leader of the people.

I would like to submit the
possibility that Shaul was in fact given this sacral status. This would
help to explain the awkward nature of the David/Shaul dual anointment.

Shaul when originally anointed as
king was given the role of the representative of Divine action. Then in the
stories that follow he is anointed two more times! These seemingly redundant
ceremonies represent his acceptance by the people. (first some, and then all) It
is these ceremonies that bestow upon Shaul the status of sovereign who has the
authority of government as the state’s executive arm.

Shaul derives his right to rule
the people from the will of the people. This is never lost by Shaul during his
lifetime! After his sin with Amalek, however, God removes from Shaul his status
as Divine representative. Shaul is the anointed leader of Israel, but no longer
the anointed chosen of God. Shmuel informs Shaul that his kingdom has been torn
away from him and given to his better. This refers to the sacral status of God’s
representative.

God demands that Shmuel anoint
the newly chosen person as soon as possible. (Shmuel, in his mourning for
Shaul’s loss of status, had delayed) When anointed, David becomes the sacral
representative of Divine will on earth. He proves that he is deserving of this
status, when he fearlessly approaches Goliath in the name of God. David does not
see himself entering battle as David, but as a manifestation of God’s will, and
therefore invincible. (It is a sad irony that Yonatan, Shaul’s son and heir,
exhibited the same traits before the battle of Michmash)

After the death of Shaul, David
is reanointed in Hevron by the assembled leaders of Israel. The covenant framed
at that event grants him, for the first time, the status of leader of the
people. Once again, like Shaul, David is first anointed to grant him sacral
status, then again later to wield executive power.

If this approach is correct, then
we have a better understanding of the bizarre stage when there were two anointed
kings. For that time, Shaul was leader of the people, but David was the sacral
figure representing God’s will. Two kings representing the two parts of
kingship.

(Parenthetically, this
distinction would also explain Moshe’s two attempts to escape the role that God
is giving him at the beginning of sefer Shmot. Although Moshe’s arguments seem
redundant, he is actually trying to get out of two different jobs. In chapters 3
and 4 it is the role of leader of the tribes of Israel that Moshe does not want.
However, in chapters 6 and 7 Hashem is forcing Moshe to become His
representative to Pharaoh. I believe that a close reading of these chapters
proves this assertion.)

---

We see from the answers to both
questions that David possessed an exceptionally rare set of characteristics that
qualified him both to be the representative of God to Israel and the head of
Israel’s executive branch. He was the prototype of a king of Israel. Therefore
he received the promise from God that the sacral status of king would always be
bestowed upon his descendants. Of course, the status of leader of the people
was, and is, held by those not necessarily having Davidic heritage.

I would like to conclude with a
strange observation and suggestion. The book of Shmuel contains a literary
paradox. It tells the story of the dynasty granted to Israel, and it also has a
clearly anti-dynastic theme. Various characters have sons who do not live up to
their fathers’ greatness. Eli, Shmuel and David each have children who fall into
sin and failure, betraying the values that their fathers lived by. Yet each of
these fathers expected their sons to succeed them. The irony is that the only
person to have a son worthy of succeeding him was Shaul. If anything, Yonatan
surpassed his father. Yet Yonatan is not allowed to follow his father.

Is not the author/editor
reminding us something that we know all to well from history? Dynasties don’t
work.

So then what form of government
will we adopt in the age of the Mashiach? Perhaps we will vote for a leader from
among the Davidic family. Perhaps there will be a ruling elite of bnei David. It
would be similar to the “caste” system of the cohanim. (not to mention America’s
own informal ruling elite “system” – our last presidential election was between
the son of a Senator and the son of a President!) Perhaps there will be a
division of power between the two aspects of a king, and the role of sacral
figure will lie in an institution separate from the executive branch of
government.